A New Epoch
by templeofdecay
Summary: Several years after the time of the Warriors of Vale, power in Weyard has changed hands. Now, it is the Adepts who are in control and the unaligned who are outcasts. Follow the path of a descendant of Felix who struggles to find a sense of belonging while caught in between the social classes.


Hello, reader. I'm trying something a little new with this story, so if you've read any of my other stories, brace yourself for something new. Here, we follow the narrative of a distant relative of the Warriors of Vale in the very distant future (compared to the timeline of the current GS games) where Adepts rule supreme and unaligned individuals are suppressed.

 **A New Epoch**

 **Chapter 1**

I used to like books. Fantasy novels were always my favorite, because they allowed me to forget myself, my world, and my circumstances and believe in something else. I once liked to imagine and play pretend, but the allure of fantasy was lost on me when reality proved too much to ignore. Now fantasy is a waste of time to me, and books in general are just a legacy of old, dead people.

It's bizarre and eerie how a collection of books can encompass the story of your life. All the nonsense you wrote when you were a child, the reports you've written at school, the notes you've taken, the incompletely read documents… It makes me sad to think that one day, that will be all that's left of me: my books, along with all the other junk I leave behind. That and a name. But what good is my name anyway? There's nothing to it. Some of the names etched into the stone walls of my city hold no meaning to me either, although I expect they should. I think about those people when I see their meaningless names and wonder if I'm disappointing them by not knowing who they are, if I'm somehow harming them in their afterlife. Whether I am or not doesn't matter to me. I'll be joining them in that forgotten state one day anyhow, though I sometimes think I'm already there.

The alchemist took the needle out of my arm. I winced slightly and stared at the little hole from which my blood freely trickled. I pressed down on the puncture with my thumb as the man eyed the pouch filled with my blood. He forced a smile and, looking at me, said, "I'll let you know when we need to meet again." _I don't doubt it_.

"I feel faint," I replied.

"Faint?" he questioned. "You've never felt faint before." The quizzical look on his face paired with his comment told me enough. I stood to leave. "See? And you're on your feet already." I grunted. He turned his back on me and shortly left the room.

By the time I reached the door, my knees were weak, and I felt cold. I managed to stumble out and sit myself down on a stair in front of the lab. I tried to steady my breathing as I continued to tremble and temporarily go blind. _Just a few more minutes of this_ , I told myself.

"Hey! Get off the stairs, guttersnipe!" came the cry of some kid. I didn't bother to look up at him. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, rat." But I didn't look at him. Nor did I respond, and so he barraged me with pebbles. I closed my eyes and shielded myself with my arms.

Some others, a pair of young women, mocked me. They whispered to each other, but I couldn't hear them clearly enough. I opened my eyes. My vision was still clouded, a hazy white glow encompassing a poorly defined picture. I needed to lay down, but now was not the time.

I felt someone's foot placed forcefully between my shoulder blades, shoving me forward. I fell to the ground and landed on someone's foot. He shouted at me and proceeded to kick me in the stomach. Several other somewhat more powerful feet and hands joined in the play. I tried to pace my breathing and protect my head from blows.

"Are you deaf too?" the girl who pushed my down the stairs spat. "You're sullying the marble. What're you doing in the plaza, git?" There was a slight pause during which I rolled onto my stomach and covered my neck with my cold hands. I was feeling better, but only slightly. The shouts of the city folk and the din of others bustling by was aiding in the progression of a slow headache.

The girl must have looked behind her, because she next commented on where I had just left. "Looking for medical advice? Well I can help you get that spark out of your eye!" With that, she mounted me, sitting square on my lower back. I felt her right hand on my forehead, pulling my head up. I resisted, but she hissed and plunged her elbow into my side. My eyelids flew open as I registered the pain. _Good. I can see now. If only I didn't feel so nauseated_. I swallowed harm.

I heard the laughter and felt the pain associated with the relief of frustration and judgment. The girl who pulled my head back commanded another to force open my eyelids. _Who are… I need to remember_ , I told myself. I didn't get to see much. My line of sight was quickly obstructed by two icy spears elongating from the bossy girl's fingers. I was starting to think I had waiting too long.

I struggled but couldn't manage to get on my side. My hips were aptly squashed square with the ground, but at least I had one arm free. "Lie still!" the girl cawed into my ear, temporarily moving her icy fingers away from my eyes as she did. That was when I made my move.

As of a couple years ago, I started carrying around a pocket knife. I found it lying next to the corpse of a child whose face had been smashed into the ground. I picked up the knife, cleaned it on my trousers, and stared at the body wide-eyed. I almost felt compelled to do something, but I was fixated on not getting caught, so I fled with the knife in my pocket. I never did find out who was slain. I don't even know if it was a boy or a girl; the kid was too young, probably five years old. But one thing I knew all too well was that I could be next.

I smiled with as much delight as one could, nauseated and sat on, to the sound of the girl as she squealed in pain, my knife having been buried into her thigh. I retracted my weapon and stabbed again before she had another moment with her fingers close to my eyes. Her hands made to grasp her wound, and I attempted to shift my body out from beneath her. My hip hadn't risen but a decimeter when she lashed out and jabbed her now five iced fingertips into my lower back. I struggled to keep conscious as I stabbed her once more, this time elongating the wound.

She went for my knife, breaking off the ice spires in my back. I quickly shifted position and slid the knife under my stomach. She responded by punching me in the face and calling for a few in the crowd to help. The girl got off of me, and someone pulled me up a little too forcefully. My stomach churned violently, and I expelled semi-digested bolus onto myself. I heard a unanimous noise of disgust; I felt somewhat better. Moreover, my knife was now by the film of my body's excretion.

I failed at twisting my arms out of the grasp of the man who pulled me up. His arms were intertwined with mine, his hands squeezing my shoulders as his nails dug into my skin through my thin shirt. I stopped squirming. The girl who had attacked me first was being helped to her feet by two others. She eyed me vehemently. I knew that I would never forget her face. "You disgust me, git," she began. "Finish him off," she commanded.

I presumed the role of punching bag as the girl was ushered away. I felt cold and displaced; the blows felt more like a dream as the images before my eyes faded into white. I could still hear the shouts and jibes, but I ignored them over the pulse I felt through my body.

I awoke lying on the ground. There was a blanket over me and a bowl of dirty water. It was more than I expected. I pushed the bowl aside, rolled up the blanket, and searched for my knife. But it wasn't where I had left it.

I washed myself in the lake before going home, knowing I wouldn't be let in the house otherwise. The wounds in my back where the girl had stabbed me burned as I tried to clean them out. I noticed also that I had scratch wounds across my side and along my lower back. I frowned and dunked my head into the water, gruffly cleaning off my skin with my hands. I could feel that my hair had come back in.

Back at home, I took dinner in my room, as usual. We never ate together as a family. My mother attributed the cause to me, saying I was too argumentative, which is true. I never liked my family. Well, okay, that's not totally true. Once I was old enough to understand why I didn't belong here, I resented my parents for not killing me when they had the chance. Before I knew what small and simple pleasures life could bring. Before I tried chasing those pleasures only to meet conflict again and again. Before I found what hope was.

When I was a child, my parents used to tell my brother and me a story about how our world used to be during the last epoch. In that time, Alchemy had been sealed away in the prospect of protecting the common good. As it turned out, all people claimed to say about Alchemy being horrible was a load of malarkey, and eight warriors set out to break the seal. They were guided by two missionaries of god and eventually achieved the Golden Sun. You probably know the rest of the story, but as my mother told it, she would make emphasis on one warrior: Felix. And it was from his House that my family descended. Apparently. I don't know how much I believe it, since there's no well-recorded history of his son or grandchildren. Yet, my family and the city folk believe it, so it's true enough to mark me.

Being in the House of Felix means next to nothing to me. In fact, I'd be far better off being an Exathi, once a valuable craftsman, now a repressed outcast in this world dominated by the Jenei. (I think it's shameful that the Adepts dared take up the name of "Jenei", but I have no say in these things. Doesn't mean I keep my mouth shut, though.) Yet, due to familial ties with the High House of the Warriors of Vale, I cannot be _legally_ ejected from the Jenei, merely socially. The argument is to prevent further shame on the High House, but its complete crap that my quality of life is totally disregarded. In protest, I've done what I can to bring shame on the High House and, in effect, I've received hatred from the Jenei without excommunication. It's a formidable torture.

Oftentimes, I will find myself thinking about "what if" circumstances of events I never had control over. I used to talk about what I thought and felt with my family, but I slowly learned that was a horrible idea. It wasn't "healthy" or "appropriate" to think about the past as if it were the present, I was told. "Your brother doesn't linger on such nonsense, so why must you?" I was asked rhetorically. I reckoned it was because I had the time for it. My brother, Sebieść, was sent to school for alchemy, like every normal Adept. I, however, passed my days at home or played in the streets. I tried doing other things as I got older, such as working odd jobs, but whatever I did ultimately "brought shame to the House", so I was forbidden from such activities. That changed later for other reasons I won't get into now.

In the end, I struggle with that which everyone struggles: identity, meaning, and belonging. Finding the answers to the associated underlying questions seems impossibly frustrating and difficult for me. And as I mentioned, I wish I had lost all hope in finding the answers; yet, I cannot manage to shake off the smallest inkling that they might exist. And so I remain in this world. And so my story goes.

As always, reviews/comments are welcome.

Thanks for reading,

Tem


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